


ZPMs and Curtains

by respoftw



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Curtain Fic, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-06 04:29:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13403481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/respoftw/pseuds/respoftw
Summary: Rodney and John explore Atlantis





	ZPMs and Curtains

When Rodney's request for a military escort to help him search some previously unexplored rooms in Atlantis came in, John had assigned himself to the task for three reasons.

Firstly because it sounded approximately a thousand times better than filling out paperwork; secondly, because history had taught him that letting Rodney loose on Atlantis without someone carefully watching his back usually resulted in killer nanites, and; thirdly, because exploring Atlantis would never stop being exciting to him.

Or so he thought anyway.

(There was a fourth reason but John resolutely refused to even acknowledge it. Wanting to spend the day looking at Rodney's ass was not something a military commander admitted to. Not even to himself.)

Three hours later and John was definitely no longer excited. After a countless number of rooms, none of which offered up anything remotely interesting, John would almost have welcomed killer nanites…well, maybe not killer nanites but he'd definitely take paperwork over searching yet another floor in this damn tower.

They stepped into another room, practically identical to the scores of rooms that had come before it, and John’s patience had finally worn thin.

“Oh, look,” he said, “another set of living quarters. Think this one’s gonna have a fully charged ZPM stuffed under the pillow?”

Rodney broke off mid-rant - something about Zelenka sleeping his way through the soft scientists - to look at John. It was that particular look that Rodney had; the one that suggested John had disappointed him by failing to live up to his intellectual potential.

“Of course not,” he snapped. “The database suggested that this tower was used solely for housing. So, unless one of the scientists was using a ZPM as the world’s most elaborate and overqualified paperweight,” he broke off, considering the likelihood before dismissing the idea with a shake of the head. “I'm not looking for ZPMs, Sheppard.  Well, not just ZPMs.”

John sighed, shifting to lean against the wall and letting his P-90 dangle from its clip on his vest. “Well, what are you looking for?”

Rodney’s ears flushed red and his chin tilted up in that absurdly defiant way that it sometimes did, the one that made John want to kiss his way across Rodney's jawline until he was begging for more. “It's none of your business, Major,” he said. “In fact, why are you even here? Isn't this a bit beneath you? I asked for a grunt. And I only bothered to ask for anyone because of yours and Elizabeth's stupid rule about not going off alone.”

Usually, John would be quick to defend that rule, quick to point out that in-city accidents and mishaps had fallen by 36% since that rule was implemented, but Rodney's obvious reluctance to talk about what he was looking for had piqued his interest.

“Come on, Rodney,” he teased, “tell me what you're looking for. Maybe I saw it in one of the other _thousand_ rooms we've already looked in. Unless you're embarrassed to tell me….”

Rodney's mouth twitched and John jumped on the tell, pushing himself off the wall and getting into Rodney's space.

“Ah ha, I knew it! Something embarrassing, hmm. What could it be?” John started to stalk around the room, making a show of lifting up dust cloths with the sight of his gun and crouching down to look under the bed. “Nope,” he grinned, “no porn under here.”

“Oh for - - I'm not looking for Ancient porn, Sheppard. Some of us had the forethought to bring a hard drive worths with us.”

The image of Rodney lying on one of the narrow Ancient beds and jacking his cock to the soundtrack of heavy moans immediately accompanied those words and John's brain took a moment or three to recover. So much so that he missed what Rodney said after.

“I'm sorry, what did you say?”

“I said, curtains,” Rodney repeated, exasperated. “I'm looking for curtains.   _And_ ZPMs. Are you happy, Major?”

“You're looking for curtains?” John knew he was just repeating Rodney's words but he was having a hard time following the turn that the conversation had taken. “As in…soft furnishings?”

“As in something to block out the light of the control tower when I am trying to sleep,” Rodney snapped. “Something that happens rarely enough around here as it is. Not all of us are career military who can sleep in a moving convoy surrounded by twenty smelly soldiers.”

He had a point, John mused. He'd long ago mastered the art of falling asleep anywhere and everywhere. Something as insubstantial as a little ambient lighting wouldn't even register to him. But, and this was the important part, it shouldn't be an issue to Rodney either.

“Why don't you just turn the window opaque?” he asked.

“Oh, with what? My mind?” Rodney's sarcasm was like a living, breathing presence in the room but, in this case, he was exactly right.

John nodded at the window in the room, the one that he had just politely asked Atlantis to turn opaque. “Pretty much, yeah.”

Rodney's mouth dropped open as he looked between the window and John. “How did you - - you just asked and it - - let me try.”

John obligingly thought the window clear again and watched, bemused, as Rodney made increasingly bizarre faces at the window in an attempt to get it to do what John had managed with ease. It became clear quite quickly that Rodney's artificial gene didn't have what it took and John's mouth dried up at the flash of utter disappointment that Rodney couldn't quite keep from his face.

“I guess we keep looking for curtains,” Rodney said, trying to make light.

In that moment, John saw that he had two choices laid out before him. He could choose to agree, to slap Rodney on the back manfully, tell him to buck up and help him keep looking, maybe suggest he spoke to the Athosians who could probably help him out with curtains. Or, he could choose to take a leap. He could choose to finally act on the feelings that had been growing ever since Rodney had walked up to him during their first week on Atlantis and asked John to shoot him.

John had been faced with that choice almost every day since then and he couldn't say what exactly it was about that moment that made him choose door number two for the first time. Maybe it was the lingering image of Rodney naked in bed that did it, but whatever it was, it did the trick.

“Maybe you don't need curtains,” he said.

“Did you already forget the bit about not being able to sleep?” Rodney asked. “And if I don't sleep, I'm not at my best. And if I'm not at my best, we all die horribly.”

“I _mean_ ,” John stressed, “that maybe you can ask someone else to turn the window dark for you.”

“Oh, what? Like someone’s going to come by my quarters every time I want to sleep just to - -“

John felt like banging his head against the wall - or maybe banging Rodney's head against the wall. “Well, maybe _I_ could - -“

“You? I know you're not a member of the science department but I'm sure you still have more important things to do than - -“

“Jesus Christ, McKay, I thought you were supposed to be a genius? I'm offering to be there when you go to sleep every night, I'm offering to,” John made a gesture with his hands that he hoped conveyed something along the lines of ‘I'm offering myself if you'll have me’.

“Oh.” Rodney sounded confused for a second before his eyes widened. “Oh! You - you - “

 _There_ was the Eureka moment.

John grinned as Rodney made grabby hands at him, and let himself be pulled closer by his vest.

“So…no curtains needed?” he asked.

“Shut the hell up and kiss me.”

John was happy to oblige.

**Author's Note:**

> This fills the curtain fic square of my trope_bingo card.


End file.
